


Living with Ghosts

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Divorce, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Infertility, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 01:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4285923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Sarge became Sarge</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living with Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RenaRoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenaRoo/gifts).



 

     Sarge was twenty five when he got married.

     It was a small ceremony, a small cramped affair that took place in a worn-down church with a priest who hadn’t seen the light of day for at least a decade. His wife was the one who chose the location, talking Sarge out of booking a large chapel on 5th. It was a shabby affair for sure, God did his in laws complain, but it was all he could afford.

     His wife didn’t blame him for it. He was just a lieutenant; his salary didn’t stretch far. As they danced in the middle of the church’s backyard, mud getting all over their rented shoes as it poured rain above their heads, she said as much.

     “I don’t need fancy,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. Even in her heels, she was still around half a foot shorter than him. It was something he’d always teased her about. “I got you. We got a house. We got a future. Stained glass can suck it.”

     Sarge snorted, pressing his lips into her hair. She was great, as usual. The best thing that had probably ever happened to him, just above his promotion. How a promising beautiful engineer chose his broke ass over everyone else on Earth was a mystery. In Sarge’s eyes, she deserved the world.

     Feeling mud stain his socks, Sarge wished that he could actually give it to her.

***

     Their future turned out to be different than they both expected.

     Sarge got sent on tour early, shipped off to an alien planet, with a brand new commanding officer. He was a strict man, tall and commanding and while Sarge respected him, he didn’t respect his tactics. His captain charged the enemy with little thought, throwing lives to the wayside in the name of the mission. It was rarely a sufficient strategy; it was a slaughter.

     Within their first month on the planet, they lost half of their men, and Sarge found that every time he picked up a shovel, it felt heavier than before.

     And then there was the matter of children. That was what they always planned on, kids, a gaggle of them, enough to keep the house loud and alive whenever he was off in the void of space. It’d been their dream while they lived in their box apartment, the reason they saved up so much money for a house.

     When they got the call from the doctors office after months of trying, that dream went down the drain too.

     Sarge found her outside, sitting on one of the benches he made for her from scratch. It had been a present for their first anniversary. He’d spent months on it, polishing the wood, adjusting the seats, adding in the bolts so it could swing back and forth. She’d always loved it.

     He’d never seen her so sad sitting on it before.

     He sat down next to her, throwing his arm over his shoulder and pulling her in close. She didn’t react, her gaze still facing their empty yard, but she let him stroke his right hand through her hair. It was a nice day outside, unlike the rain that haunted their wedding. Sarge could see the sunlight refract through one of their wind chimes. It took all he had not to throw a rock at the thing.

     “We could adopt,” he said, after a few minutes, voice soft. He didn’t want to press the issue, not when she was like this. He didn’t want to press her for anything. She sighed, the sound long and pained before speaking.

     “No, we can’t. We can’t afford it.”

     “Not now. But if I took extra tours, took a riskier branch-” It was an option for sure. While he’d never been specifically offered a job outside his current branch, he knew all he has to do was ask to get sent to the front lines. It meant a higher mortality rate, but also a higher salary.

     “We can’t afford it,” she said, voice harsher. She wasn’t talking about money this time. Sarge grabbed her hand and squeezed it, making sure not to add too much pressure. She gripped back as tight as she could, her nails digging into his palm. She ended up drawing blood, something she’d apologize profusely later, but for the moment, neither of them noticed.

     The next day, Sarge placed the wind chime in the trash.

***

     Three years passed, and Sarge was promoted to Captain.

      They held a big celebration in their house, inviting the neighbors that his wife had managed to befriend. Between the two, she was still the better socialite. At the end of the night, all of the food they managed to cook had vanished, gobbled up by small children who walked behind their parents with sticky fingers.

     It didn’t sting as much to see them, now. But that didn’t mean Sarge still didn’t reach out to grasp his wife’s hand when she looked at the kids across the street, wistful.

     “I can’t believe it,” she said, helping Sarge clean the table later that night. He did most of the cleaning, an arrangement they worked out back when they first started dating. Part of it was that Sarge was an excellent tidier. The other part was his wife’s inability to organize. She made the meals, he dealt with the mess. “A Captain.” She picked up around five paper plates and dropped them into a large garbage bag.

     “If you keep saying that, it’s going to get stuck in my head,” Sarge said, taking some wine glasses up to the sink. His wife walked up behind him and smiled, a bright sparkle in her eyes.

     “Alright, Captain.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek, leaving a large smudge of lipstick behind. One of her worst habits, in Sarge’s opinion. “Can you blame me for being excited? This means you get your own squad. Make your own rules.”

     “My own rules,” Sarge said, trying to hide a smile. It was a losing battle. “Like what?”

     “I don’t know. How about casual Fridays?”

     The battle was lost in one blow, and Sarge’s smile came out on full display. “Command will love that one.” He looked down at his hands and realized that he’d been cleaning the same dish for the last five minutes. It was shocking that he hadn’t managed to take off the paint.

     “Just make sure to credit me,” she said, handing him another plate while pulling the clean one out of his hands. She walked over to the drying rack with a skip in her step.

     At that moment, Sarge hoped he’d never forget this moment as long as he lived.

***

     Having his own squad had its own advantages and disadvantages.

     For one, there was the responsibility. The weight of lives on his shoulders with every step he took, every order he gave. It was enough to halt him in mid-sentence sometimes, the very thought of it. Then there was the discipline, the need to radiate authority to the rookies in his squad who thought they knew better. In short, it was a lot of work.

     But those were perhaps his only burdens. His new position came with a new salary, which when combined with his wife’s, was enough to pay off her student loan debt entirely. His men respected him, despite the occasional instance of talking back (which, frankly, was usually well deserved). Being in charge allowed him to protect his men in a way that being lieutenant never allowed. And there was Lopez.

     Lopez was the youngest in Sarge’s squad, a rookie fresh out of base camp. A sturdy young man with strong shoulders and a focused gaze, Lopez was maybe the most promising of his new recruits. The kid had flaws, a smart mouth, an independent streak, and an inability to focus outside of a combat zone, but he was a determined soldier, and to Sarge, that was worth more than anything else. Plus he reminded Sarge of his wife. And a little bit of himself.

      He was a good kid. Which was why Sarge was shocked when he found that he was staying on ship for shore leave.

     “It’s Thanksgiving, Lopez!” He said. Both men were on the flight deck of this ship, Sarge in his cameo, Lopez in a t-shirt and sweats. “Your first Thanksgiving you can take off this blasted ship and you’re choosing to stay on it. That’s blasphemy son!”

     Lopez shrugged, a sad look in his eyes. The kid’s military buzzcut had grown out over the time they’d been in space, black locks curling right behind his ears. Sarge had a feeling that Lopez used to wear it like this back when he wasn’t enrolled. It looked more natural on him than the regulation buzzcut. “It is what it is. Don’t get me wrong, Captain, I’d love to go home and have a couple of drinks, but that just isn’t an option.”

     Wasn’t an option? Sarge wasn’t the most perceptive of Captains but he could see a sore spot when he found one. While part of him thought it would best to leave it there, the other part decided to ignore it entirely and pry. “Why not?”

     Another shrug, but this one looked more forced. “Folks kicked me out when I came out.” That caught Sarge by surprise. How anyone could kick out a kid like Lopez was lost on him. Sarge pressed his lips together, staring at his subordinate. He couldn’t leave Lopez on the ship after hearing that.

     It dawned on him at once. The most genius idea he’d ever had. His wife would be thrilled. Sarge reached forward and rested his hand on Lopez’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

     “That doesn’t mean you have to stay here! We’ll be glad to feed another mouth at my place!”

     It took a minute or two for the proposal to sink into Lopez’s head. He blinked a few times, looking taken aback. “Sir, I can’t-”

     ‘Of course you can!” Sarge raised free hand up in the air. “We got plenty of space. A bunch of guest rooms. And my wife is always complaining about extra seats!” Lopez glanced off to the side and Sarge tightened his grip on his shoulder. “Honestly, son, it’s not a problem. If you don’t want to come, that isn’t a problem either.”

     Lopez looked back at Sarge. His eyes looked a little wet but there were no visible tears on his face. He gave Sarge a shaky smile. “Alright. When do we leave?”

     Sarge clapped his hand on Lopez’s shoulder. “Now that’s the spirit.” He led the private out of the fly deck, towards the hallway. “My wife is going to love you.”

     Sarge was right. She did. The clever engineer with her own company took to the young soldier like he was family. For the next five years, Lopez would end up spending part of  his time at their house, either resting on their sofa, or taking a quick visit. Even though he was no longer a child, the boy was nothing less than their son.

     Soon enough, the staple family picture that Sarge kept in his wallet consisted not only of him and his wife, but of Lopez too.

***

     When they were next sent out, Lopez came as Sarge’s lieutenant.

     Sarge’s wife saw them leave, driving them to the airport the morning they set out. As they waited for their plane to load, Sarge’s wife leaned forward to press a kiss to Lopez’s cheek.

     “Keep him safe, won’t you? Someone has to watch out for his antics.” Lopez nodded, giving her a small salute.

     “Yes Ma’am.”  

     “They’re not antics, they’re tactics-” Sarge cut off as she dragged him in for a kiss. Lopez rolled his eyes next to them. Soon enough they were called to board, and she broke the kiss, stepping back.

     “Be careful. Both of you. I’ll see you in six months.”

     “I promise,” both of them said at once.

     It was a promise both of them would break.

***

     Lieutenant Camillo Lopez would die taking a bullet for his commanding officer.

     Sarge couldn’t remember it, that moment. He remembered getting off the ship in full armor, he remembered when the bombs started to fall, he remembered yelling at his squad to retreat, but he couldn’t remember anything after. When he woke up in his hospital bed with serious burns on his hands, he would have to be told about the death of his entire squad, how all of them perished to retrieve a single file folder, how he was going to be promoted to Sergeant.

     He didn’t need to be told about Lopez. He figured that out off the bat when he saw his worn wife sitting at his bedside.

      Lopez would have never let her deal with this alone.

***

     His wife left him with a kiss to his cheek when he declared he was signing up for another tour.

     “You need to see a doctor,” she said, the circles under her eyes dark. “One outside of the military. You’re not well.”

     “I’m fine.”

     “You wake up every night screaming. You think our neighbors are trying to kill us. That isn’t fine, honey.” She took a step back. “Look, they’re not going to send you out like this. When they don’t, give me a call. We’ll get you an appointment with someone who can help.”

     “They’re not going to say no.”

     They didn’t. Within a week, Sarge had a one way trip to Blood Gulch as the head of Red command. Months later, divorce papers would come in the mail, which Sarge would sign without second thought.

     It would be years before Sarge realized that perhaps his wife was right. They should have never taken him after all.

     (It would be another decade until he realized that his wife might have not sent those papers in the first place).

***

      More than a decade later, Lopez found a picture in Sarge’s inner armor pocket.

     It was an accident, something he stumbled upon more or less when trying to clean Sarge’s armor. It just slipped out of the pocket when he was working on the chest piece, sliding to the floor, face down. Lopez had half the mind to ignore it at first, letting it sit there, but then he saw the writing on the back.

     Lopez couldn’t speak English, but he could understand it. Writing too. Which is why the scrawled handwriting on the back that said “Me, the wife, and Lopez” caught his attention.

     He flipped the picture over. On the front was a younger Sarge, younger than Lopez could ever fathom him being, next to a woman around half a foot shoulder with gorgeous brown hair and eyes. They looked to be on Earth, their bare feet hidden by long strands of grass, houses visible in the distance behind them. But that wasn’t what caught Lopez’s attention.

     He couldn’t help but focus on the young Latino man, with curly black hair and green eyes, who was standing between them.

     For the first time since his creation, Lopez began to wonder if Church wasn’t the only member of blood Gulch living with ghosts.

**  
  
  
  
 **


End file.
